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Updated: Belkin responds to Media Reader file transfer issue

Brian VanHarlingen, Sr. Technology Manager for Belkin has submitted an official statement to iLounge regarding Belkin’s position on the Media Reader transfer issue.

A reader at dpreview.com has discovered that transferring large files from large capacity compact flash cards is a slow process. A 500MB file transferred from card to Media Reader took 22 minutes. Other transfer tests indicate slow speeds as well - about 1 minute to transfer a 20MB file at 0.300MB per second. Belkin has acknowledged that there is a problem with large file transfers. Belkin is said to be working with Apple to solve the problem. If it’s an hardware issue, Belkin says it will replace the units. If it’s a software issue, Apple will most likely release a firmware update.

Statement:

It’s a pleasure to hear from you. Most of us here at Belkin have become regular, daily and sometimes hourly, visitors to iLounge.com throughout our product development and launch process. Your site is an extremely valuable source of feedback for us.

In regards to your questions, Belkin does not have any plans to modify the hardware design of the Media Reader for iPod in the immediate future. The current product balances several hardware considerations, including street price, transfer speed, battery life and portability, with software considerations. Design decisions have been made to address the needs of the largest percentage of owners of digital cameras and iPods, and we believe the product to be successful in doing so.

The Media Reader for iPod is optimized for the majority of digital camera users, shooting images of 1MB-3MB in size, and using the predominant sizes of memory cards being purchased today at retail: 64MB and 128MB. The transfer speed we are seeing on the current media reader hardware is, with most media brands/types and using iPod software version 2.1, a little over 300KBps. This results in a transfer time of between five and six minutes for a full 128MB card. There is the possibility of modest speed increases via software; however, we cannot speculate on the likelihood of any software optimizations being introduced.

The iPod has always been first and foremost a digital music player. We welcomed and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to work with Apple to bring additional utility to iPod owners, including the current digital wallet capabilities, and hope that these products bring great value to their users.

Note that we are adding information to the FAQs on our website addressing Media Reader speed today, copied from some of what I’ve written here. If you have any other questions, please feel free to contact me.